Today’s another birdie day. This birdie is a new one for me, I think. You know, lousy memory. I may have seen him once or twice before, but certainly not frequently at all, and certainly not more than once or possibly twice before, if that. 😉
I have no idea what these birds are. That much is not too surprising. What is surprising, though, to me at least, is that my handy dandy new-to-me free downloadable field guide to Sri Lankan birds was no help at all.
Harumph!
I guess either a. the sketches aren’t always entirely accurate or b. that field guide doesn’t include every bird in Sri Lanka or c. the sketches don’t show every colour permutation that a given bird can go through in its life cycle or d. I’m blind and just can’t see what’s there. I suspect any of those are possible. 😉
I think this bird is a sunbird given its very long beak. I’ve looked at the more common sunbirds in Sri Lanka, but didn’t see anything that quite matched. Ah well.
Anyone? Anyone?
I don’t know what they are, but they’re gorgeous!
.-= Virginia Lee´s last blog ..365 Photo Project: Day 28 =-.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loten's_Sunbird Check here. I think it’s a male Loten’s sunbird per the photos.
.-= Virginia Lee´s last blog ..365 Photo Project: Day 28 =-.
Edited by Laurie: The URL didn’t parse correctly (WordPress seems to have a problem with URLs that have apostrophes), so I tried changing it to an is.gd URL – http://is.gd/3Xufn – but, for whatever the strange reason, it won’t let me change the URL itself. It shows up changed in the comment when I edit it, but it doesn’t show up changed in the comment itself. Something wonky is going on here…
I looked at Loten’s Sunbird, but there are some major (to me) differences between Loten’s Sunbird and my bird.
Loten’s Sunbird has a blue head and maroon back (not visible in the picture). Mine has a green head with a green back.
I agree, they’re similar, and I looked at Loten’s Sunbird as a possibility, but the colour differences don’t have me convinced yet.